Bold and Modern Values
by MrsTater
Summary: Mary's attempt to keep up with the fashion trends reveals that Richard is abreast of the social ones.


_**A/N: A little Friday afternoon PWP (At last, I have managed to write true porn-without-plot!) based on that conversation Mary, Richard, Matthew, and Lavinia have about the new French haircuts. Follows S2 but pretends the Christmas special didn't happen. Enjoy, Richard/Mary fans!**_

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**Bold and Modern Values**

"Good afternoon, Lady Mary," says Miss Fields, the secretary, as Mary strides into the reception room outside her husband's office, and heads straight for the door. "Sir Richard's just on the phone at the moment—"

"That's all right," Mary replies, grasping the knob and turning it. "He won't be for long."

Richard doesn't look up at her entrance, though he does stand in acknowledgment of it, lifting one finger off the mouthpiece to indicate he'll be off in a moment for their tea engagement with Lord and Lady Cavendish. Mary leans back against the door to shut it, and reaches round behind to lock it, the mechanism turning over in the jamb with a _thunk _that catches Richard's attention over his own strident tones. He turns from the window, his fair eyebrows arching at her in question even whilst he voices another to the person on the opposite end of the line. In answer, Mary raising hers back at him as she approaches his desk, peeling off her cinnamon-coloured gloves and tossing them onto one of the chairs along with her handbag, then reaching up to remove her hat.

"One moment," Richard says into the mouthpiece, then, covering it with his hand, addresses Mary. "What are you doing? We'll be late to meet the Cav—"

It's not often she's capable of rendering her husband speechless, but his mouth hangs open, mute, as she takes off her cloche to reveal her new coif.

"There has been a development," he speaks into the phone. "I'll ring you back later."

Mary hears a muffled protest on the other end of the line, cut off as Richard puts the earpiece onto the receiver.

"You've bobbed your hair," he says.

_No wonder men cut their hair short_, Mary thinks, schooling the tug of a smirk into submission. Even in this marriage with its constant flux of power, she's never yet mustered the authority to put a premature end to a phone call here, in territory that is entirely Richard's. If she'd known it would tilt the balance in her favour, she'd have long ago given up her one reservation about the new French hairstyle, which was that Matthew would hate it.

She ruffles her fingers through the dark curling ends of her hair which fall just shy of her cheekbones, and takes a deep breath to still the fluttering of her heart that she's made such a bold and irrevocable change to her appearance.

"Yes," she says breezily, "it was rather a spur of the moment thing. I suppose you think I ought to have asked your permission first. Or at least consulted you."

"It's _your _hair," Richard replies.

Mary's fingers still as she contemplates her next move, not entirely sure the power is all on her side, after all. Slowly, she lowers her hand to rest along the back of the chair in front of his great oak desk.

"I thought perhaps hair might come under the jurisdiction of my vow to obey you."

"Have I ever forbidden you to bob your hair?" Richard asks in a low tone as he saunters around the desk to her. "Have I made any demands of you at all that require your obedience?"

_Apart from blackmailing me into an engagement? And demanding we keep our wedding date even so soon after Lavinia's death?_

"No," she answers, with an upward tilt of her chin.

But the defiant stance is unnecessary, Richard conceding the high ground to her as he sits at the edge of the desk, which stands just tall enough as to place him just below eye level with her. He stretches out one hand, his fingers grazing her hipbone and beckoning her nearer to him so that she stands between his knees; the other he lifts to her cropped hair, and Mary stiffens to stop a shudder as he lets a curl twine about his knuckles.

"Are _you_ pleased with your new haircut?" he asks.

"I don't know. I can't decide if I'm still quite feminine."

His eyes darken and his hand drops to curl about her throat, and for a heartbeat Mary fears she has gone too far with so obvious an allusion to Matthew, even though logically Richard ought to be pleased that she's made an alteration his one-time rival would find unappealing. But he pulls her closer, so that his thighs press on either side or her hips, and she knows that the look in his eyes is far from displeased. She bends to kiss him, but he turns his head and his lips glide all along her bare neck and jaw instead, and she feels a surge deep within her that corresponds with the press of his arousal against her.

"Heavens," she murmurs. "It seems the anti-suffragists are correct in their crusade against bobbed hair for inflaming passions."

"You're the one who marched in here and locked the door, all liberated and empowered," Richard replies, the words a little slurred as he keeps his lips on her throat. "To what may I look forward tomorrow? Red lipstick and one of those skirts with the fringe around your knees?"

"Are you making demands now? Must I obey you and wear a fringed skirt?"

Richard nuzzles her neck, chuckling low as his fingers skim over the collar of her silk blouse and begin to unfasten the buttons. "I don't give a damn what you wear. Or whether you wear anything at all..."

"Mmm," Mary agrees as she loosens his tie, "but you might care if Lord Rothermere sees me wearing nothing from across the street in the _Daily Mail _office."

"Good point."

In a smooth movement, Richard stands upright and spins them so that Mary sits on the edge of the desk, her blouse fully unbuttoned to reveal her lacy camisole. She unfastens the cuffs around her wrists and shrugs her arms out of the loose sleeves, the silk garment pooling on the polished mahogany surface of the desk, and tugs her skirt over her hips as Richard divests himself of jacket, waistcoat, and shirt. Apparently the brief space of time necessary to fully undress is too long for him to keep from touching her, because rather than taking down his trousers, too, Richard places his palms on the desk on either side of her hips, and leans in to kiss her. His tongue sweeps into her mouth and he pushes her onto her back as he climbs up on the desk and stretches his body over the length of hers.

The desk his hard beneath Mary's back, and something presses between two of the knobs of her spine that she thinks must be a fountain pen. But for all the uncouthness of this setting, Richard kisses her tenderly, and his hands caresses her small breasts and slender body through the chemise with a touch that evokes the vow he'd made to worship her with his body.

Of which she is not seeing enough, Mary thinks, and turns her head to break the kiss. when Richard doesn't take the hint, seemingly content to trail kisses along her cheekbone to the lock of hair curling about her ear, back down her neck again to her shoulder blades, she places a hand against his chest and gives him a nudge.

"Richard, dear," she says, "don't you think this will work better if you at least unbutton your trousers?"

He lifts his head, a strand of hair falling forward where Mary's fingers have raked it free of his pomade. She brushes it back from his face, and frowns; she hopes he keeps a spare bottle in his office loo for occasions it requires tidying before meetings, so he won't have to face Lord and Lord and Lady Cavendish looking like he came fresh from an afternoon tryst with his wife.

"Impatient, are we?" Richard asks, huskily, rocking his hips down against hers.

Mary presses her lips together against a groan, then says, "Only it won't do to be _too _late for tea with the Cavendishes."

"I'm sure a politician understands how current events take precedence over tea," says Richard even as he pushes up on one elbow to undo his trousers.

"The current event being your wife's new haircut. Should I expect to see a headline?"

"It would sell a lot of papers, Lady Mary Carlisle Seduces Newspaper Magnate in Office."

With a snort she starts to sit up, lifting a leg so she can unfasten her garters, but Richard stops her with a hand on her shoulder, pushing her back against the desk. She sighs, but submits to his desire to undress her himself.

"The new fashions do make illicit interludes like this a good deal easier," he says as he pulls down her knickers.

"I'm so glad you appreciate my bold and modern undergarments."

"Very much," says Richard, sweeping his fingers through her bobbed hair as if to emphasise the claim as he draws her in for another deep kiss.

Mary wraps her arms about his shoulders and hooks her sheer stockinged legs about his waist, opening her hips to him. When he enters her, she's glad for his mouth covering hers, muffling her sound of pleasure from Miss Fields on the other side of the door; a flush prickles over Mary's skin as this thought excites her more than it ought to do, and when Richard dips his head, burying his face in her neck to taste the perfumed hollows of her skin, she turns her head to look out at the window, their entwined moving bodies reflected back at her against the backdrop of St. Pauls towering over the newspaper buildings of Fleet Street. She gasps and bites her lip against the force of her body's reaction to the image, and Richard's lips groan her name in hot puffs of breath on her skin as he shudders within her.

"I am quite happy to tell you, Mary," says Richard, as they dress again in their slightly crumpled clothes, "that I still find you _very _feminine with your bobbed hair."

"Stop the presses," Mary replies, slipping her cloche over her new coif. "Sir Richard Carlisle's a feminist."


End file.
